NBC falls short with short track
They made money, about $60+ million so NBC is calling it a win despite having lower viewership than Salt Lake or Nagano. Torino averaged 20 million viewers down from the 31 million viewers of Salt Lake and 25 million of Nagano.
As far as short track goes, their US coverage was atrocious with the exception of the men's 500 final. Why? Because they showed the false starts.
Short track isn't about the falls or the finishes. It's about the anticipation of the falls and the hope of that last second by-a-skate-blade finish. It's the build up that leads to the viewers breathing a sigh of relief that a favorite skater didn't fall.
Apolo's 1500m fall was just a fall to a first time viewer unless you saw other slips before that semi. But they only showed the American quarters, semis and finals with big gaps of other sport between each. There was no sense of build up, no anticipation that the unexpected could happen and did.
NBC didn't know how to cover short track. They split races with filler sports to keep short track fans watching. In the process, I think they lost a lot of viewers that could have become short track fans if the coverage was better. They didn't show the other men's semi relays where during a fall, one of the Italians took a blade to the helmet and thankfully escaped uncut. The dangerous falls don't happen alot, but after you see one, you end up crossing your fingers that you don't see another one.
At the Olympic trials at The Hague, Netherlands, there was a bad patch of ice coming out of one of turns. On the 2nd day during the 500, at least 6 skater went down hard at that corner and quite a few slipped but didn't fall. Every time any of the skaters would come around that corner, I would be holding my breath hoping that nothing serious happened.
Short track is exciting when you have a familiarity with the sport. Something that NBC could have covered better. They could have spent time at least doing some promo piece about short track but they never did that. They showed even less skating. The interviews afterwards took more time than the skating.
Considering a 500m takes less than 45 seconds. A 1000m is less that two minutes and a 1500m is less than 3 minutes and a relay is less than 6 minutes. NBC showed less than 40 minutes of actual skating for the entire 2 weeks. Like I said, the coverage was atrocious.
I'm waiting for friends to send me the CBC and Eurosport coverage so I can really watch Olympic short track because I really didn't see any on NBC.
As far as short track goes, their US coverage was atrocious with the exception of the men's 500 final. Why? Because they showed the false starts.
Short track isn't about the falls or the finishes. It's about the anticipation of the falls and the hope of that last second by-a-skate-blade finish. It's the build up that leads to the viewers breathing a sigh of relief that a favorite skater didn't fall.
Apolo's 1500m fall was just a fall to a first time viewer unless you saw other slips before that semi. But they only showed the American quarters, semis and finals with big gaps of other sport between each. There was no sense of build up, no anticipation that the unexpected could happen and did.
NBC didn't know how to cover short track. They split races with filler sports to keep short track fans watching. In the process, I think they lost a lot of viewers that could have become short track fans if the coverage was better. They didn't show the other men's semi relays where during a fall, one of the Italians took a blade to the helmet and thankfully escaped uncut. The dangerous falls don't happen alot, but after you see one, you end up crossing your fingers that you don't see another one.
At the Olympic trials at The Hague, Netherlands, there was a bad patch of ice coming out of one of turns. On the 2nd day during the 500, at least 6 skater went down hard at that corner and quite a few slipped but didn't fall. Every time any of the skaters would come around that corner, I would be holding my breath hoping that nothing serious happened.
Short track is exciting when you have a familiarity with the sport. Something that NBC could have covered better. They could have spent time at least doing some promo piece about short track but they never did that. They showed even less skating. The interviews afterwards took more time than the skating.
Considering a 500m takes less than 45 seconds. A 1000m is less that two minutes and a 1500m is less than 3 minutes and a relay is less than 6 minutes. NBC showed less than 40 minutes of actual skating for the entire 2 weeks. Like I said, the coverage was atrocious.
I'm waiting for friends to send me the CBC and Eurosport coverage so I can really watch Olympic short track because I really didn't see any on NBC.
Comments
Yano said...
I agree, Corin. NBC didn't even show Anthony Lobello's race or some of the heats for the women. During the relay semi, the camera was on Apolo 75% of the time, and we missed out a lot on the actual skating. The final was better, though I know it was tough for NBC to decide who to focus on - the Canadian/Korean fight for gold or the American/Italian fight for bronze. I do like it that NBC picked up Dan Weinstein, who had skated with several of the US team members and other skaters during his skating years before 2002.
3/1/2006
Gamecock said...
I have to say I am relatively new to short track, watching a little in 2002, but loving 2006. That being said I loved the 2006 games, watched them to the exclusion of most of the rest of the Olympics. I watched them on tivo, so I could get the continuous feel, but I can see where that would be a problem.
3/1/2006
Genes said...
Yes, NBC's coverage sucked big time. I often watched OLN, and watched NBC at prime time because I knew they would cover Apolo. But, I have to admit that neither NBC nor OLN covered the men's relay very well. The Canadian channel pretty much only showed the Canadian and Korean teams battle it out (which was really exciting!). They never showed the American team finish. NBC, on the other hand, barely showed the race, and focused on Apolo just skating in the middle of the track, waiting for his turn. I'm an Apolo fan big time, but I wanted to see the race, too. I hope NBC doesn't cover the Olympics in 2010.
3/3/2006
Pattie said...
I didn't think NBC did a very good job of covering a lot of events, with short track being among those that was poorly covered. They left out too much for people to really grasp the sport and they focused so much on Apolo and on the "rivalry" between him and Ahn that a lot was missed that didn't have to be.
3/3/2006
shawn said...
It was obvious not much, if any time was spent on the short track production. the coverage looked like NBC sent a cameraman at the last minute to cover the short track venue. NBC was clueless on camera angles on how to best cover the races. If NBC would have put their technical expertise into short track as well as they covered Super G, we'd all be alot happier.
3/5/2006